The Simple Woman’s Daybook ~ Sep 1st
Outside my Window… it is rather chilly… The sun is shining, the sky is clear. I love it!
From the learning room… “bouquets of newly sharpened pencils!”
I am thankful… for all the weight Snuggles has gained. He is doing AWESOME! He is finally crawling all over the place, and even started standing up last week!!! I am not so thankful for all 4 of his molars breaking through this week, not to mention 2 other front teeth. Poor baby! At least he is getting it over with all at once!
From the kitchen… a roast is cooking in my much-loved crock pot. We will be having shredded beef tacos for dinner. Yumm!!!
I am creating… back-to-school gifts for my children. I had hoped to have this done on Friday, but it didn’t happen.
I am going… to be staying home as much as possible this week as we begin our new routines for the school year.
I am wearing… old clothes since we were deep cleaning our home this morning.
I am reading… lots of wonderful book reviews on Alice Gunther’s book Haystack Full of Needles. I have been dying to order this book, but I’ve had to wait since all my book funds have gone into school books for the children.
I am hoping… to order my copy this week, since I just sold a couple old books online. 🙂
I am hearing… the vacuum cleaner. My hubby is busy cleaning our light fixtures, air vents and ceilings!
Around the house… lots of active children, as usual! 😉
One of my favorite things… Catholic Baptisms. (I’ll post a few pictures soon!)
- Our First Week of School, the tutor will be coming Tues-Thurs
- The boys are invited to a Birthday Party on Thursday
- Mass and Benediction on Friday, followed by lunch with Father and then errands and doctors appointments in the afternoon.
Here is a picture thought I am sharing:
To see more Daybook entry’s, click here.
Birthday Highlights
Twinkle Toes had a wonderful birthday! She got to see some of her friends at a Baptism we attended in the morning, followed by a BBQ at our friends home. We then came home to eat cake and ice cream and let her open up her gifts… I used the opportunity to purchase her a new booster seat
Thank you to all of you for the prayers and birthday wishes. I read them to her and she says “Thank you!” with her cute and bashful smile. God Bless!
Happy Birthday Twinkle Toes!
I can’t believe that our little princess is turning FIVE years old today!
As I was making her Towering Sand Birthday Cake earlier tonight (or rather yesterday!), I kept finding myself reminiscing over the past years, and then found myself looking though our old photo albums. Anyhow, I thought I would take a minute and share a few pictures from her past four birthdays.
Here are a couple pictures from the day she was born. We were all SO excited to meet her. Our family was growing fast! Three babies in three years.
Here is our little girl on her first birthday. . . (along with my attempt at making a cake!)
For her 3rd birthday, we invited a couple families over for pizza and cake. She was very excited to have friends over. However, when it came to blowing out the candles, she wasn’t quite sure what to think.
For her 4th Birthday we had family in town, so we all went out to dinner at a favorite Japanese restaurant. Looks like I had started making a habit of just picking up Costco cakes! Oops! At least one had chocolate frosting and one had white!
She was soooo excited to receive a new doll on her 4th birthday.
(You see, we had recently had to throw out bury all her old baby dolls. During the prior winter, she was trying to keep them all warm and lined them up on the ledge of our woodstove. I wasn’t sure what I smelt burning, and when the fire alarm went off I ran into the living room to find a row of smoking dolls with melting heads. Not to mention my devastated daughter! My dear hubby put them outside (face down) to cool off, and later that afternoon we had a surprise visit from a couple Jehovah Witnesses. I couldn’t help but laugh at what they must have been thinking about the row of burnt dolls!)
Well, I better stop looking back and finish getting ready for tomorrow. Her cake is made and presents wrapped, but we have to leave bright and early for a baptism and it is getting late!
In Honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Well, summer is drawing to a close, and yesterday was our last:
Summer with the SaintsThe month of August is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and so was this week’s Summer with the Saints.
“Since the 16th century Catholic piety has assigned entire months to special devotions. The month of August is traditionally dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The physical heart of Mary is venerated (and not adored as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is) because it is united to her person: and as the seat of her love (especially for her divine Son), virtue, and inner life. Such devotion is an incentive to a similar love and virtue.” (Catholic Culture)
Here is an overview of our afternoon:
The Children started with some beautiful coloring pages of the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
I must say that Marci is a very creative and resourceful craft planner. For this week she came up with a way for the children to make the Immaculate Heart of Mary using only a piece of red construction paper, scissors, glue and some crepe streamers in pink, red and orange.
Didn’t they turn out great?!? To make them, all you have to do is fold your paper in half to cut out a heart. Spread glue over the heart. Tear some orange strips of crepe paper for the flames and add to the top middle of the heart. Make little balls out of the red crepe paper and cover the heart. Make little balls out of the pink paper to add around the middle for the ring of flowers.
As they were making them, Rascal said, “This is the easiest craft ever! It is so much fun!” Need I say more . . .
Next my boys (Rascal decided not to be left out this week) got busy creating there Summer with the Saints Sidewalk Art based on the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
I just love how you can so clearly see the difference between boys and girls in this last picture! My daughter is peacefully jumping next to a three boy pileup! 🙂For today’s snack, the kids enjoyed the cutest little ice cream sandwiches shaped like hearts.
OH! I almost forgot. . . We didn’t have time to stay and make Holy Cards this week, since we had to get to the children’s last swimming lesson of the week, aka Graduation Day. Nevertheless, we brought home the printed images so we could make them later.
We are most definitely going to miss the weekly Summer with the Saints.
It was so much fun!
Super Commenter
Aahhhh!!! Shelly, The Keeper of the Keys, is so very sweet and just passed on the Super Commenter award to me! Thank you Shelly!
Yes, I love to leave comments when I have make the time. . . almost as much as I love receiving them!!! 😉 I just really have enjoyed meeting and getting to know some of the wonderful bloggers out there!
Anyhow, the ‘rules’ of acceptance are that you nominate 7 other bloggers to receive the award.
Awhile back I added a widget in my sidebar that lists my “top commenters” on a regular basis. (It lists the top 10 from the last 500 comments.) So, to make it easy, I am just going to nominate the current top 7, or else I would never be able to limit my nominations it to just 7. . . all my commenter’s are Super!
- Amy at Knit Together in Love
- Aubrey at Prosapia Vita
- Christine at Living a Simple Life and a Pure Faith
- Shelly at The Keeper of the Keys (Right back at ya Shelly!)
- Meg (my cousin) at Meg’s Blog
- Jamie at Lord, Make me a Saint
- +JMJ+ at Totus Tuus Family and Michele at Galloping Grace Youth Ranch (these two are currently tied for 7th… At least until a couple more comments come through!)
Thank you to all of you!! ♥ Keep them coming!!! 😉
Graduation Day
Yesterday was Graduation Day once again for Myrna’s “Swimming Stars.” My boys were so excited to earn their 3rd Star of the Year. . . They completed six WEEKS of lessons, and went from barely swimming to diving to the bottom of the deep end and dreaming of the Olympics. The girls are also doing great too, and earned their 2nd Star of the Year for completing four weeks of lessons. Even Snuggles received a Star. It is so cute seeing him sit on the side of the pool and hold his breath, jump in, and roll over onto his back when I give him the cue, ” Ready… Go!!!”
Myrna did decide to add one last session to the end of this summer, starting next Tuesday, and she said she could fit us in if I was interested. . . I just don’t know if I could do another two weeks, especially with school starting. She told me to think of it as therapy. . . which is very true. . . since swimming does wonders for children with Auditory Processing Challenges. But still, I am not sure. . .
Anyhow, here are a couple pictures from our last day.
Oh, and even though Rascal may not be the fastest swimmer in the group. He definitely wins the prize for the best dives!
(This one was the best, but unfortunately I pushed the record button a second too late, and was wrestling with a squirmy baby! :S)
The First Shall be Last . . .
Rascal: “Mom, I don’t think that I am going to be able to be the best in the Olympics when I am older…”
Mom: “Why do you say that?”
Rascal: “Well, because I only won 5th place…”
Mom: “5th place is GREAT!!!!”
Rascal: “Not when there are only 5 people in the race.”
Which opened the door to the First Shall be Last Parable. 😉
The Rest of our Plans
With just a few days left until the beginning of our new school year, it is time for me to wrap up my plans… So far I have just shared our plans for World History, American History, Math and Religion. I had hoped to do a post on each subject but time is flying and I need to stop planning and get ready to start implementing… So, I am just going to quickly outline the rest of our plans in this post…
Phonics:
This year I will have my oldest son’s tutor coming 3 mornings each week. I am really excited about this. Not only will she be helping Captain, but she will also be teaching me how to teach the younger children. After struggling so hard the last few years (even though I know now it was all due to a learning challenge), I am very burned out when it comes to teaching phonics. I am SO thankful for help in this area!!
Mrs. K uses a variety of resources and is trained in the Lindamood-Bell method of teaching phonics. Next week her and I will be sitting down and planning out the phonics curriculum for my children this coming year. I am actually starting to get excited about it once again!!
Spelling:
Seeing Stars®: Symbol Imagery for Phonemic Awareness, Sight Words and Spelling Program- Building Spelling Skills Grade 1
- Spelling Time (for Reinforcement)
Grammar:
Handwriting:
The boys will be doing plenty of handwriting in their Spelling books, as well as with their copywork assignments for Religion, History and Poetry. However, they love the Seton Handwriting for Young Catholics series, and so I did order book 2 and 3. They will probably complete 1 page per day.
My girls will be using Handwriting Without Tears. Twinkle Toes will be going through Letters And Numbers For Me and Chiquita will be using Get Set for School. They both will be working with the various Hands-on Materials.
Geography:
Our Geography studies will be tied in to our History lessons, depending on what we are studying each week. We will use our Globe and the Blackline Maps of World History Book and CD
We will also be playing lots of games as we continue working on memorizing the States and Capitals. Our favorites are:
Science:
The boys will be using Harcourt Science and Lesson Plans from Kolbe Academy. We will also be doing Bi-Weekly Nature Hikes and keeping Nature Journals. I also plan to have a book basket available for extra reading using the suggestions over at Serendipity.
Music, Poetry and Art:
For these subjects we will be using the plans over at Serendipity:
I have the guides printed out for the first couple weeks, books and CD’s ordered or requested from the library, and some very excited children looking forward to beginning. It should be a fun year!
I am also still considering whether or not to put the boys in Music Lessons– either Piano or Violin. I am torn since we are putting most of our extra money (and then some) into the tutor this year, so this might just have to wait till next year. We’ll see.
Preschool:
I almost forgot to mention Pre-School. I have used the Little Saints Preschool Program with my other children and plan to pull it out once again this year. (In fact we have already started!) I also couldn’t help feeling completely drawn to try out Elizabeth’s Along the Alphabet Path (especially since it goes so well with our music, poetry and art plans), so I printed out the Storybook and Booklist this past weekend, we may just follow it loosely, I’m not sure yet… I also ordered some of the Kumon Workbooks
After gathering all my plans in one location, it looks like we are going to have a busy year. I better get *busy* making that schedule!
The Simple Woman’s Daybook ~ Aug 25th
Outside my Window… last night there was a SKUNK! Right there… RIGHT outside the kitchen door… I should have grabbed my camera, but instead I jumped/screamed and scared it away. It reminded me of the time my sister Jennifer mistakingly pet a skunk thinking it was our cat when we were kids. Thankfully the skunk was so surprised it didn’t know WHAT to do and she slowly backed up and got away. I didn’t react as calmly. 😉
From the learning room… I have been spending a lot of time over at Serendipity, browsing, printing and then requesting books from the library… I am so excited to add some of the plans to our studies this year!
I am thankful… for my wonderful hubby, as usual! This weekend he helped me SO much! He put all the boxes in our small little attic, cleaned the bathrooms, and even washed my van inside an out!! I tell ya, he is spoiling me!
From the kitchen… coffee like usual. I am still trying to decide what to make for dinner. I am leaning towards the recipe for Enchilasagna from my Healthy Foods
I am creating… a back-to-school supply list.
I am going… to be very busy this week… You can see my plans below.
I am wearing…black gauchos and a pinkish tee-shirt.
I am reading… Managers of their Homes. Again. Why is it so hard for me to make a schedule??
I am hoping… that I don’t need a root canal. I woke up with a horribly sensitive tooth on Friday. I *think* that I had a filling fall out, though I am not sure. The dentist wasn’t able to get me in until tomorrow morning, and I have hardly been able to eat, and only able to drink out of a straw all weekend! Oh I have such a fear of the dentist… please say a prayer for me tomorrow morning!
I am hearing… an old Popeye movie playing. Twinkle Toes woke up with a bad rash on her legs… poison oak maybe? And I am letting her watch a movie.
Around the house… there isn’t much to do.. It is SO nice. I am sure that is all about to change come this afternoon, but I am enjoying it for the moment.
One of my favorite things… is receiving our new school books in the mail. The mailman just left a few more packages today! Yay!!
- Finalize the plans for our Little Flowers group
- Auditory Processing Class for Captain, Mon-Wed
Last week of Swimming Lessons ~ Each afternoon Mon-Thurs - Dentist appointment for me on Tuesday
- Pick up Back to School Supplies, and book order from our local book store
- Pick up reserved books at the library for our first couple weeks of school
- Chiropractic appointment for me on Wednesday (I am a mess!!)
- Summer with the Saints on Thursday
- The boys will be serving Mass and Benediction on Friday, which will also be the 1st day of our new school year… What better way to start the year than with Mass? After Mass we will go out for Coffee and Turnovers in honor of St. John the Baptist. I also promised the children a trip to the Ice Cream Shop to celebrate the beginning of our new year. It looks like it will be a fun day!
- Our newest Goddaughters baptism Saturday morning
- Twinkle Toes 5th Birthday on Saturday (We may have to celebrate on Sunday, since we have the baptism and party on Saturday… We’ll see.)
- Sometime in the midst of all this, I hope to catch up on reading my favorite blogs, post the rest of what I have planned for our school year, as well as post the rest of the pictures from our trip… It may or may not happen!
Here is a picture thought I am sharing:
Oh No!!! Not again!! I left to go and take the above picture, and came back to find this:
Every once in awhile my email program goes crazy and decides to resend me the emails from the past year few months. Does anyone else have this problem????
To see more Daybook entry’s, click here.
Our Plan: Religion
I wasn’t quite sure where to start (and stop) with sharing our plans for teaching our children Religion this year. Religion is not just a course of study, it is a way of life. As the Baltimore Catechism says, “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.” We are constantly looking for ways to weave the teachings of our dear Church into all the aspects of our lives, and not just confine these lessons to a set block of time each day. It was for this reason that we choose to home educate our children in the first place. Anyhow, here is a small list of some of the resources we will be using this year:
Captain
Rascal
Both Girls
- Catholic Treasure Box Series
- Chat’s With God’s Little Ones
- Leading the Little Ones to Mary
- Various books by Father Lovasik
- 24 Catholic Songs for Children CD and Coloring Book
I also purchased the Home Catechesis Manuals by Moira Farrel (at the Home School Conference back in May) to add to our studies as well. We have had the Mass Kit for a few years, and my boys LOVE it! I am looking forward to using these guides!
In addition to our studies, we LOVE celebrating the liturgical year in our home, the domestic church. Here are a few of the things we do each year:
- Daily Mass (when possible) and Rosary
- Daily Reading and Calendar Magnet In Honor of the Saints
- Various Catholic picture books, Copywork and Coloring Pages
- Create a Liturgical Year Notebook
- Various Feast Day, Nameday and Baptismal day celebrations including lots of Catholic Cuisine
- The Jesse Tree during Advent
- The Advent Calendar
- The Jesus Tree during Lent
- Our Lenten Calendar
- Celebrate the 50 days of Easter
I am sure I left much out, but at least it gives a glimpse into our plans.
by word and example, in faith and in Christian living.”
(Canon 774.2, 1983 Code of Canon Law)
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